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I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I've always thought the best place for my photographs was inside books of my own creation.

Sam Abell

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Sam Abell
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: February 19
Photographer
Sylvania
Ohio
Thinking
Books
Images
Place
Considered
Stories
Photographer
Thought
Photograph
Best
Short
Book
Creation
Essays
Always
Writer
Photographs
Think
Inside
Poems

More quotes by Sam Abell

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When I first went to 'National Geographic,' I thought I was the least qualified person to step through the doors. But because of my parents and the culture of continual learning they imposed on us, I later came to believe I was the most qualified person who ever worked there.
Sam Abell
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I think that it's workshops, honestly, that have kept me keen about photography, and about my photography. My career as a workshop photographer came while I was at the Geographic in the late 70's, and has continued consistently since then.
Sam Abell
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As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.
Sam Abell
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There isn't an aspect of book creation I don't enjoy, and there has always been a book in my life to dream about or work on.
Sam Abell
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For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon. For culture, Japan. And for all-around affection, Australia.
Sam Abell
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That's who comes to my workshops. I jokingly tell my students that the class could be called Your photographs: Better.
Sam Abell
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There are grander and more sublime landscapes - to me. There are more compelling cultures. But what appeals to me about central Montana is that the combination of landscape and lifestyle is the most compelling I've seen on this earth. Small mountain ranges and open prairie, and different weather, different light, all within a 360-degree view.
Sam Abell
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For example, in my dorm, at the University of Kentucky, I had the only camera. I don't think anyone came to college with a camera, other than me.
Sam Abell
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I was a consultant for Kodak back in the late 80's. There were engineers there who told me that in the future, most photographs would be taken on telephones. They weren't able to do anything with that. They were engineers, not management.
Sam Abell
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I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.
Sam Abell
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Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.
Sam Abell
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The unusual wins out over the usual.
Sam Abell
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Though Geographic didn't publish that photo in the story that it was done for, The Life of Charlie Russell, a cowboy artist in Montana. But later, maybe a year and a half ago, they named it one of the 50 greatest pictures ever made at National Geographic.
Sam Abell
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I was giving a lecture and I said, that's enough about The Photographic Life, meaning my biography, now let's talk about the life of a photograph. And in that one instant I got the title for a potential next book.
Sam Abell
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Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.
Sam Abell
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It matters little how much equipment we use it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.
Sam Abell
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A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.
Sam Abell
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Teaching has never been far from my life. It's the most natural thing I do. Apparently, as I said, I cannot not do it.
Sam Abell
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My first priority when taking pictures is to achieve clarity. A good documentary photograph transmits the information of the situation with the utmost fidelity achieving it means understanding the nuances of lighting and composition, and also remembering to keep the lenses clean and the cameras steady.
Sam Abell
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How the visual world appears is important to me. I'm always aware of the light. I'm always aware of what I would call the 'deep composition.' Photography in the field is a process of creation, of thought and technique. But ultimately, it's an act of imaginatively seeing from within yourself.
Sam Abell